


familiar disguise

by doublejoint



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: FEHweek2020, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27611156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Shigure meets his mother.
Relationships: Aqua | Azura & Shigure
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	familiar disguise

**Author's Note:**

> For [FE Heroes Week 2020](https://twitter.com/feheroesweek) day 2: Unit alt!
> 
> (Title from "Lost in Thoughts All Alone")

Shigure has met versions of his mother here before, none of them really the mother he knows, but perhaps, upon meeting the version of his mother who is a small child, he doesn’t know his mother very well at all. She looks at him with suspicious eyes, as if she doesn’t trust that he’s really there, that there’s no possibility that they can be related at all, let alone that he’s her son. Not everyone here gets along perfectly with the alternate versions of their parents, to be sure, but they’ve all been accepted in some way or another--Shigure would take a million times the awkwardness he has with the not-his-mother versions of his mother, or that the most awkward child has with their not-parent, over his mother sobbing, refusing to talk to him, and accusing him of lying about their relationship.

Wouldn’t she know the pendant? Shigure grasps it in his hand--but no, he shouldn’t still be holding onto that. She might be mad; she might say he’d stolen it. He sighs, looking down at his hands. Maybe he’s making things worse--his mother or not, this is a sad, stressed child who’s been pulled into an unfamiliar world full of strangers, some of whom resemble people who have caused her pain.

He hadn’t known all of that, or even most of it, only the rough sketches, the things that she hadn’t liked to talk about, but not the reasons. Shigure stares into his palms. Would singing work? Would she be angry that he did it? Is there anything he can do to help? His mother--the real one, the one he knows--might not want him to try. But he hasn’t always done what his mother’s told him to do or wanted him to do, and she’s not here anyway, is she?

“Oh, Shigure, there you are.”

Camilla’s voice is the smallest bit worn-down, her smile a little obviously-forced--she must be absolutely exhausted, probably kept up by trying to calm down Shigure’s mother. At least she’ll see Camilla, even if she won’t let her help. (He knows the bitterness isn’t productive, isn’t good, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling it, like strong coffee in the back of his throat.)

“Shigure, I...I have to apologize.”

Shigure blinks. “Excuse me?”

“When your mother and I were young, there was a lot going on--well, politically, though your mother and I were stepsisters we weren’t permitted to have any sort of relationship. At the time, the idea was little more than a passing thought, but I didn’t quite realize how lonely your mother was. It’s brought back a lot of things I don’t like to think about.”

Shigure nods. He’s not really sure what to say.

“I can’t say what she wants me to say,” Camilla says. “I can’t be the person she wants me to be, an older version of the person she’s built up in her head.”

(At least she accepts Camilla’s existence--though that’s not something Shigure can really say out loud, and it’s unfair.)

“I’m sorry,” Shigure says, finally.

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize.” Her smile looks a little more genuine now. “But if you’re up for it, she’d like to see you.”

“Does she…” Know? Accept? Realize?

“She did believe me when I said you really were her son, yes.”

And that’s all he’d hoped for, wasn’t it? Shigure nods.

“Thank you. And thank you for talking to her.”

Shigure finds his way to the room his mother is staying in easily, and he knocks before entering.

“It’s Shigure.”

A long pause, and he worries for a second that she’s fallen asleep, or that she’s fallen asleep and he’s just woken her up.

“Come in.”

She’s sitting on the bed, alert, her knees drawn up to her chest, bare feet curled around the edge of the mattress. Shigure moves to sit down beside her, but not too close, and she does not push him away.

“What is our life like? You and me in the future, I mean.”

Shigure pauses. He’s not going to lie, but he doesn’t want to upset his mother--but spending too long spinning up a story will make her less inclined to believe him, even if every word is true.

“I don’t get to see you and Father and my brother as often as I’d like to. But when we’re together, we’re happy. And I know you and Father are doing the best you can to take care of us.”

Shigure’s mother squints up at him, and then relaxes her shoulders a bit, as if she’s decided she believes it.

“So--your father and me—?”

“Very happily married,” Shigure says, firmly. 

“Huh,” says his mother.

(Then, Shigure thinks about Camilla again--about King Garon, the little he knows of the man, and the grandmother he never knew. Was their marriage a happy one? Does his mother think of it as having been happy? Or has this nothing to do with her mother and everything to do with her, in the future, loving and being loved by someone who is a stranger to her now?)

Shigure reaches out and slips his mother’s hand into his. It’s smaller than his, and this has been true of the mother he knows for years now, but never this small and delicate, never this tentatively grasping back onto his. Her grip has always been firm, her gaze steady and courageous when she looks at him. 

He begins to hum the song he’d learned from her, not strictly speaking a lullaby, but--she begins to sing, under her breath. Her voice is different (obviously, it would have to be), but still sweet and familiar, still something in it of the woman she will one day be. He stops humming, but his mother continues through the first verse, every note and every word clear.

“Did I teach you that?” she says.

“Yes,” says Shigure. 

His mother does not smile, but Shigure knows the expression all too well, and even before she squeezes his hand he’s reassured.


End file.
